Cement-encased styrofoam dock supports are found Tuesday at on the beach near Chetco Point Park. The Pilot/Bill Vogel

Brookings residents are invited to pitch in during a work party Saturday morning to remove Styrofoam blocks from the beach.

Participants will meet at 10 a.m. at Mill Beach, where much of the material has washed up. Other debris is at Chetco Point, said Bill Vogel, who is helping organize the cleanup effort.

It’s a potential environmental problem, he said, because small pieces of Styrofoam are breaking off from the blocks and getting into the ocean water.

 “I would consider it an extreme environmental situation,” Vogel said. “If animals eat those pellets, they could die.”

He said the material apparently was dislodged during last year’s tsunami. Some of the largest pieces – as big as mattresses – are encased in concrete and came from the Port of Brookings Harbor, where they supported the docks.

Port Manager Ted Fitzgerald said the dock sections covered in concrete weigh a couple of thousand pounds apiece. The largest ones probably can’t be removed until late spring when the weather should be better, he said.

See Clean up, Page 2A

The port uses Styrofoam because it makes the docks float and even concrete has some buoyancy, Fitzgerald said.

As for smaller pieces of Styrofoam to be collected Saturday, the port will provide plastic bags to citizen crews. When the effort is completed, port personnel will dispose of the material along with other tsunami debris by taking it to a landfill.

While it’s certain the cement-encased Styrofoam is from the port, Vogel said there’s no telling where the other material came from.

“These are now washing up with the storms,” he said.

More information about the cleanup is available by calling Vogel at 541-469-3640.